May the Gods Be Ever In Your Favor
by DamnDonnerGirls
Summary: Viking Age (early medieval) collection. CHAPTER TWO, "Odin's Hanging Tree": "Your god hanged on a tree," Katnisse observes. "Like Odin." Peeta shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not like Odin." Four months after his capture, a young monk encounters shieldmaiden-in-training Katnisse Eyvindsdottir. An Everlark prelude to Enthralled.
1. Requiem (Thom x Delly)

**Title: **"Requiem"

**Characters: **Thom, Delly

**Summary:** In the end, it is not an ax, not a sword, but the birth of a child that brings the Viking warrior to his knees. _"Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion."_ —Dylan Thomas

**Warnings:** Character death, tragedy, angst

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_The Saxon kingdom of Panym_

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In the end, it is not an ax, not a sword, but the birth of a child that brings the warrior to his knees.

"A girl," Prim tells him, as she places the bundle in his arms. "You have waited so long for a girl."

"Congratulations, brother," Róry says. "Now you are a father four times over."

And yet there is no trace of the old, rapturous joy of fatherhood, only a growing despair.

_I should have controlled my desire,_ he thinks, as he cradles his daughter close to his heart. Born before her time, she is beautiful—but small, so small. _I should not have risked my wife's health for my pleasure. _

He licks his lips. "I want to see her," he rasps. "I want to see my wife."

Prim hesitates. "That they both survived the night is already a miracle. The monks say—"

"Confound what the monks say." His voice is low, calm, but he wants nothing more than to scream, to lash out with his fists and feet, like the restless infant in his arms.

It is then that Peeta emerges from the bedchambers, his cheeks hollow, his eyes drawn. In this moment, he looks so much older than his thirty-four years.

The warrior rises to his feet. "My king." His wife's oldest and dearest friend.

"Thome." Peeta lays a hand on his shoulder. "She asks for you."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Her lips are pale, but her smile still takes his breath away, the way it did when they first fell in love eighteen years ago.

"Husband," she whispers. "I thank the Lord for your safe return."

Gently, he lays their daughter by her side, and the reunion immediately soothes the child's cries. "Forgive me, my love." The words catch in his throat. "I am to blame for your suffering."

She places her hands on his face and kisses his lips. "Do not apologize for the nature of life." Her voice is faint. Her breathing is shallow. "Did our eldest return from Normandy with you?"

"Yes. I wore out three horses in my haste, but I forbade him from taking the same risk himself." He manages a smile for his wife's benefit. "He travels with his intended. You shall meet her soon."

Her eyebrows lift in surprise. "Theodore has a sweetheart? So soon after the mission?"

He nods. "A Frankish girl from the town of Évreux. Her name is Marie. She is kind and beautiful, like you."

"Marie d'Évreux," she says wondrously. "How time flies."

"Remember when he was a little boy, playing bows and arrows with Princess Eiryn? The old women thought they would take an interest in each other."

"The princess has always been too headstrong for our son. If the gossip from Tolv is true, she is too headstrong even for Sægeirr." She coughs. "I always thought Theodore would fall for Kara. After all, Kara looks so much like her mother."

_And Theodore looks so much like his father. _His heart aches at what she means to say. "Your words cut me like a sword, my wife."

She reaches up and traces the scar on his cheek. "I fear I am not long for this world."

He turns his head and presses his lips to her palm. "Do not say that."

Her eyes fill with tears. "You loved her once, and you can love her again."

The idea is preposterous, yet he cannot bring himself to laugh. "I do not think my old friend would appreciate your designs on his wife while he is still living."

"True, but should the opportunity arise… with her, or with any other… promise me your life will go on, after I am gone."

"I shall make no such promise," he tells her. "_You_ are my life, my love, my all."

"Even after I die?"

"Even after we both die."

She shakes her head. "If you go to Valhalla… I cannot visit you there."

"Then I shall not go. I shall be reborn, and so shall you, and we shall be together once more."

The ghost of a smile flickers across her face. "I thought you a warrior of the North, not a priest of the Far East."

"It is not without precedent. One day I shall ask Vik to sing you the song of Helgi and Sváfa. Three lifetimes they lived, perhaps more, and they never failed to find each other."

The child starts to cry.

"Let us speak no more about sad things," he implores his wife. "Here is the happiness we long for. We have been blessed with three sons, and now we have a daughter. What name shall we give her? A Christian name, like her brothers?"

"No. I would like her to have a Northern name, to honor the land of your birth," she says. "Let us call her Dagny."

"A new day."

"Yes. So that no matter the darkness of the night, she will always have hope for the coming of the dawn."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

On the third night, his wife dies peacefully in his arms, with Dagny on her breast and their sons Theodore, Gabriel, and Brice by her side.

Before they bury her, he commits her every feature to memory, and cuts a lock of her hair for him to keep.

When their friends hear the news, they come to visit him. They come from Tolv, from the land of the Danes, the land of the Svear and the Geats, from the East.

He grieves.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

When his first grandchild is born, he takes Dagny with him, and they settle with Theodore and Marie.

Peeta and Katnisse give him their blessing, and he enters the service of the duke of Normandy.

"Take another wife," his sons counsel him. "There are many women in Évreux. If none satisfy, there is always Paris, and the rest of Frankia."

He refuses. Not while their mother comes to him every night in a dream.

**.**

**ooo**

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"_When will I see you again?" he asks, his fingers entwined in her golden hair._

_She brushes her lips against his skin. "Are you so impatient, my love, that you ask me this every night?"_

"_I will wait, whether it is ten years, one hundred, one thousand," he vows. "But if it were possible to have certainty, I wish that you would give it to me."_

"_In a thousand years, you may not recognize me."_

"_Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind," he tells her. "Even if I am blind, I will see the contents of your heart, and that will make you known to me."_

_She smiles. "If that is true, then you have just given yourself the certainty you seek."_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Vik writes their story in his book, and teaches their song to the skalds.

Darius carves her name into a rune stone that Cato and Clove bring with them on their voyage over the Eastern Sea. It reads:

_This stone was raised in memory of Delly of Panym. Wife of Thome the Scarred from Tolv. Mother of Theodore, Gabriel, Brice, and Dagny. _

**.**

**ooo**

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On the day that he falls on the battlefield, the one that comes for him has her face, her heart, her name.

"Are you a valkyrie?" he gasps. It is winter, but the sun shines bright in his eyes. The snow is stained red with his blood. "Or an angel?"

She holds out her hand to him. "I am your love, and you are mine."

That is all he needs to know. "Delly," he breathes. "I have waited so long."

She kisses his lips. "You need not wait any more."

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**A/N.**

I made a video for this! Link: **vimeo dot com slash 129963888**

This is an origin story of sorts for modern!Thom (full name Thomas Devereux) in _A Thousand Years_.

Eiryn is Everlark's eldest daughter. Her name is a combination of Eir, the valkyrie of healing, and rún which means "rune".

Kara, Gadge's eldest daughter, is named after another valkyrie.

Sægeirr ("sea-spear"), Odesta's eldest son, was introduced in _Enthralled_.

Thelly's sons Theodore, Gabriel, and Brice are named after my broTP3: Thom, Gale, and Bristel, respectively.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind" is from Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.


	2. Odin's Hanging Tree (Katniss x Peeta)

**Title: **"Odin's Hanging Tree"

**Characters: **Katniss, Peeta

**Summary:** "Your god hanged on a tree," Katnisse observes. "Like Odin." Peeta shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not like Odin." Four months after his capture, a young monk encounters shieldmaiden-in-training Katnisse Eyvindsdottir. An Everlark prelude to _Enthralled_.

**Version notes:** Originally published on the Winter in Panem Tumblr blog on December 28, 2015. The FFN version has longer author's notes.

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At the first cold light of dawn, Katnisse Eyvindsdottir slings her bow across her back, straps on her skis, and prepares for her journey to the jarl's house.

"Betony leaves, dill blossoms," her sister, Prim, murmurs as she checks Katnisse's pack. "Mistletoe."

It is only Prim's twelfth winter, yet her gift for healing already surpasses Katnisse's own. Nevertheless, Katnisse questions the merits of the weed taking up precious space in her rucksack. "Mistletoe?"

"The Saxons use it," Prim tells her. "Peeta says so."

"Who is Peeta?" To Katnisse's ears it is a strange name, and on her tongue it feels stranger still.

"Haymið and Eyfri's new thrall. We spoke, when Mother and I last visited their hall."

Katnisse thinks back to the harvest feast, and remembers a foreign slave with flaxen hair cut in a strange fashion. "Is he a Christian priest?"

"Yes. The one they captured from the kingdom of Panym last summer. The handsome one, with the blue eyes."

_Astonishingly blue. _Katnisse dismisses the thought and scowls at her younger sister. "Does Róry know about this man you find so handsome?" Róry Hallvardson, the boy who had Prim's heart, and Gæl's younger brother.

Prim giggles. "Yes, but what does it matter? Róry has no reason to be jealous of Peeta. Not now, not ever."

"I suppose you are right." No male thrall, however handsome, could ever hope to be with a freeborn girl, though the reverse was common enough. And was it not true that some of these priests—the ones who shaved their heads and spent their days in prayer—were not allowed to marry? No, this Peeta would not be a rival to Róry Hallvardson. Not now, not ever.

Another thought occurs to her. "Is it wise to use Christian medicine? Jó says each time the Christians worship, they eat the body of their god and drink his blood."

"It is not Christian; it is an old remedy, from the time when the Saxons worshipped the same gods as we do." Prim smiles. "Was Jó eating her mushrooms, as she was telling you this?"

Katnisse feels compelled to defend her berserker friend whose reputation precedes her. "No, in fact, she was not." Jórunnr was _not_ in one of her mushroom-trances at the time, though she was certainly drunk. But that is not something Prim needs to know.

It is time to go. Prim rises up on her toes and kisses her sister's cheek. "Safe travels, Katnisse. Tell Peeta I said hello."

**.**

**ooo**

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Peeta holds a rag to the wound on his leg. In the space of two heartbeats, the yellowed homespun blooms red with blood. He grimaces, not from the pain, but from the worry that it might stain. He mutters a quick prayer of thanks that none of Eyfri's precious silks from the Far East were within his reach. No amount of water mixed with stale urine would restore the original beauty of such a delicate fabric once it was bloodied.

As for Peeta's attacker, he would not escape unpunished. Then again, his attacker was all of six years old.

"You are not to harm the thralls," Eyfri, the jarl's wife, scolds her young son. "We need them to help around the hall. Or would you rather have as many chores as the other children do?"

Svein pushes his toe into the straw strewn on the dirt floor. "We were only playing."

His father, the chieftain of Tolv, is himself angry, but for a different reason. "I gave you a new knife so you might learn to use it properly," Haymið jarl says sternly. "Have you already forgotten your first lesson?"

Svein lowers his head shamefully. He is standing in the center of the hall, under the smoke-hole, and his pale blond hair gleams white under the weak sunlight. "No, Father," he answers, his little voice so soft that Peeta can barely hear him.

"Tell me, then. What is the most important thing you must remember, if you are ever to become a warrior and fight in the shield wall with honor?"

Svein recites the words mournfully. "Know who your enemy is."

His lower lip sticking out, the little boy adds: "But Father, Peeta is a priest, and a Saxon."

"Peeta," Haymið says, "is your friend."

"Ubbe says our warriors kill the Saxons and steal from their priests," Svein says, a hint of stubbornness creeping into his voice. "If some of them are not our enemies, why are they not all our friends?"

Haymið sighs and passes a hand over his face at the mention of his eight-year-old son, and Svein's older brother. Ubbe and Svein have inherited their father's inquiring mind, and for this the jarl is proud, but sometimes it is more trouble than it is worth.

"We do what we must to survive," he says wearily. "Would that we did not need to."

Peeta knows that, at times like these, Haymið does so wish for a daughter. Then again, any daughter of the jarl's would be even more cunning and clever.

There is a knock on the door.

The other thralls are otherwise preoccupied. Haymið glances at Peeta's leg; the wound is not too deep. "See who that is," the jarl instructs him gruffly. "I am expecting Katnisse Eyvindsdottir."

**.**

**ooo**

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Peeta has seen Prim's older sister before, at the harvest feast, and even then he found the archer to be the most beautiful young woman in Tolv. And yet, when the monk opens the door to find Katnisse there—cheeks pink from the wind, snowflakes in her raven hair, skis on her feet and a bow on her back like the Northern goddess Skadi—the sight fills him with so much warmth, he almost forgets it is winter.

Then a gust of cold wind blows, and he remembers.

"Come in," he says. "The jarl is expecting you."

She flinches when he moves to unbind her skis. "I can do it myself," she says curtly, as she removes the planks of pinewood from her boots.

"I am a thrall," he says simply. "This is what thralls do."

Eyfri bustles over to them. "Let the boy help, Katnisse."

Grudgingly, she lets him take her pack. Peeta sets it on a nearby table—a wooden board laid on top of trestles—and, under Eyfri's supervision, begins to take out the contents one by one.

Katnisse watches him. "Of what use is mistletoe?"

Eyfri reaches up and touches Katnisse's face. "I pray to Freyja that you will never know." She smiles sadly. "Of course, when you marry Gæl—"

Katnisse frowns. "I am not marrying Gæl."

"Why ever not? He is handsome and brave. You are well suited to each other, and he has proposed to you twice over."

"I have sworn not to marry anyone."

The jarl's wife sighs. "The day will come, Katnisse Eyvindsdottir, that you will feel such a terrible love-longing in your heart, and you will regret the words you have spoken today."

"Marriage means children," Katnisse says. "I do not want to have children of my own."

"Then perhaps you should shave your head and swear yourself to the Christian god," Eyfri snaps. She turns to her thrall. "See her out, Peeta. The two of you have much in common."

**.**

**ooo**

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Haymið pays Katnisse for the medicine and for her trouble. He even saddles up one of his horses for her. "You should not ski home in this weather."

Katnisse knows he is lying. The weather is not any worse, or better, than it was a few hours ago. Haymið only wishes to make amends for his wife's behavior. He is the son of a farmer—it was through his cunning that he won glory in the raids and became a chieftain—and he is not as easily offended as one highborn.

"How shall I return her to you?" she asks, one hand on the mare's black mane. _A horse will be the first thing I buy, _she thinks, _after my first raid._

"Peeta will ride with you," the jarl says.

"You trust him not to escape?"

Haymið shrugs. "Where would he go?"

And so they ride, Katnisse astride the horse and Peeta on a mule, away from the jarl's house and the town, to the other side of Tolv fjord.

Peeta is the first to speak. "Do not take Eyfri's words to heart. She is at her wits' end. Their sons are restless in the winter."

_How strange this thrall is,_ Katnisse thinks. _He speaks without being spoken to. He is trusted to return with the jarl's horse. He does not even have the shorn hair that is the mark of the male slave._

"I do not care what Eyfri thinks," she says stiffly. "I have sworn what I have sworn."

Peeta chuckles. "Perhaps she is right," he says in jest. "Perhaps it is you and I who are suited to one another."

Katnisse scowls.

**.**

**ooo**

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A few moments pass in silence before Katnisse's curiosity gets the better of her. "It is true, then. You are a priest of Christ."

Peeta lifts his hand to the back of his head, where his tonsure is growing out. "A monk, yes."

"Prim sends her greetings."

"I am honored that I am in your sister's thoughts. We spoke of healing, of the differences between the plants in Panym and those in the North, not too long ago."

Katnisse nods thoughtfully. "Your god hanged on a tree," she observes. "Like Odin."

Peeta shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not like Odin. Odin knew great wisdom came at the cost of great suffering, and hanged himself for his own selfish gain. Christ endured agony on the cross, that He might save those who believe in Him. He is selfless, and kind, and just."

"Like Baldur, then," she says, naming Odin's favorite son. Fair Baldur, bright Baldur, the god of light and justice, killed by an arrow that the trickster Loki fashioned out of mistletoe and placed in the hands of Baldur's blind brother Hodur.

"Well… yes. But Christ is so much more." Peeta smiles wistfully. "He is not one of many gods. The Christians believe theirs"—he swallows—"_ours_ is the one true God."

"It must be lonely for him, to be the only god. Perhaps that is why Christians have so many rules, so many laws. Your god has nothing else to do."

Peeta knows there is no malice in her words, yet they sting more than his wound. "Is that any worse than the gods of the North? Odin, Thor, Freyr, Freyja—they take no interest in those who worship them. Warriors are so desperate for the gods' attention, all they desire in life is an impressive death in battle."

"Do not presume to know the minds of those who go a-viking." Katnisse's tone is as harsh and as biting as the winter. "Do not presume to know why I"—her breath catches in her throat—"why _anyone_ would wish to go on the raids."

"The raids in which you plunder my land and kill my people?"

Peeta regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. The Northmen have been kind to him; for this he is grateful. His life was spared when they learned he spoke their language. With every passing day, Haymið treats him more as a steward than a slave. Even if Peeta is a captive here, in many ways he is happier than he was in Panym, where the mad old king with the snow white hair knows nothing but to raise taxes and take young men and women as tribute. Tributes never to be seen or heard from again. Tributes like Peeta's own beloved brother.

"It was not my intention to cause offense," he says quietly. "Only God has the right to judge. I am sorry."

Katnisse sets her jaw and looks straight ahead. She does not speak.

He searches his mind for something else to say. "As for Odin and the rest, I have no doubt that they are impressive… beings," he tells her. "Finn taught me one of the songs about Odin. I sing it to the jarl's sons, sometimes, before they go to sleep."

The furrows in Katnisse's brow grow deeper.

"You do not believe me? I will show you." He takes a deep breath. "_Are you, are you coming to the tree? Yggdrasil, where Odin hung_—"

She cuts him off. "That is enough," she says brusquely. Then, softly: "I accept your apology."

Peeta is glad that she is not looking at him. "As you wish."

They ride the rest of the way without another word.

**.**

**ooo**

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Katnisse does not often allow herself the luxury of grief, but when Peeta opens his mouth to sing, her nose begins to sting.

Her father had been a skald, the greatest warrior-poet the people of Tolv had ever known. He could speak of the great deeds of men, and the glory of the gods, like no-one had before. It was said that when he sang, even the birds stopped to listen. That was how he came to be known as Eyvind the Bird-Silencer.

Surely her father is in Valhalla now, drinking the mead of poetry with Odin and Bragi. But she finds little comfort in it. She recalls the words she spoke to Gæl Hallvardson, the night that the funeral pyres blazed for their fathers. _My family needs my father more than the gods do._

To distract herself, she spends the rest of the journey listening with her hunter's ears for the sounds of nature. Today, however, there are none to be heard. On this winter day, a hush has fallen upon the earth. A blanket of white descended from the skies the night before, dampening all sound until there was nothing but that special silence that follows the fallen snow. To Katnisse, it feels even quieter now than it was earlier this morning, when all she could hear was her measured breathing and the whisper of her pinewood skis across the snow.

Even this reminds her of Eyvind, of everything she has lost, of that unspeakable sorrow.

A tear escapes from the corner of her eye, only to freeze on her wind-chapped cheek.

It would not do to dwell on her father.

**.**

**ooo**

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At home, Prim notices that Katnisse is even more taciturn than ever. "What is wrong? Did something happen on your journey?"

"No, I—" Katnisse's throat thickens. "I was only thinking of Father."

Prim puts her arms around her sister. "I miss him, too. But we must always look forward. That is what he would want us to do."

Katnisse buries her head in Prim's shoulder.

Later, she asks: "The priest, we will see him at the solstice, will we not? When we sacrifice and begin the Yule feast?"

Prim smiles. "I believe so." She pauses, and adds: "Peeta once told me that, in Panym, they celebrate the birth of the Christ God a few days after."

Katnisse nods. She will make amends, when she sees the priest again. Even though he is but a thrall and is owed no apology, she hopes he will accept hers.

"I am much looking forward to the feast, in fact," Prim continues. "I wonder if Anni is with child. If she is, no doubt Finn will be even more full of poetry than ever."

A slow smile tugs at the corner of Katnisse's mouth. "Someone must tell Finnbjorn Oddarson the truth—that he is not the skald we are looking for."

"Perhaps," Prim agrees. Her eyes sparkle when she says: "Perhaps it is you."

Katnisse shakes her head resolutely. It has been a long time since she last sang—a long time since anything flooded her heart with so much happiness, it flowed out into the world as song. "A skald's life is not my destiny."

That night, as the sisters and their mother get ready for bed, Katnisse thinks of the priest. She is the first to admit that she does not make friends easily. But perhaps, one day, she will tell Peeta more about her gods. Perhaps he will tell her more about his.

Prim tilts her head and looks curiously at her sister. "Are you humming, Katnisse?"

Her cheeks grow warm. "Yes," she says defensively. "What of it?"

Prim unties the strip of leather from Katnisse's braid. "Nothing." She smiles.

It was the very last song their father taught her. But, for the first time, the song fills Katnisse with something like hope—with a feeling like the first dandelion in the spring, like life-giving fire in the dead of winter.

_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Yggdrasil, where Odin hung_

'_Til rune-magic he did see._

_He said: "Nine nights I have stayed,_

_Sacrificed myself to me._

_No price is too high to pay_

_For the wisdom of the tree."_

**.**

**~ENDA~**

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**A/N.**

Katnisse and Peeta's story continues in _Enthralled_ (link on my profile page).

Fans of History Channel's _Vikings _will have guessed that Athelstan inspired me to make Peeta a monk. It is unlikely that women joined the raids in real life, but the ladies of THG are such badass fighters that it just made sense to have shieldmaidens in this AU.

"Tolv", the name of their village, is Danish/Norwegian/Swedish for "twelve".

Mistletoe was a fertility aid, among other things. Even though Viking!Effie has her hands full with her sons, she still wants to have a daughter.

It's been a very busy holiday season! **Hawtsee** and I collaborated on a fic about Gadge in Ireland for **jennycaakes**'s **12 Days of Gadge** on Tumblr. You can find _Operation Vixen_ here on FFN under the pen name **hawtdamngirls**.


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